


Redemption Road: “Director’s Cut” Epilogue

by Zatnikatel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 06:03:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatnikatel/pseuds/Zatnikatel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Redemption Road – Original Epilogue</b><br/>By <span class="ljuser i-ljuser"><a href="http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/"><b>swordofmymouth</b></a></span> and <span class="ljuser i-ljuser"><a href="http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/"><b>zatnikatel</b></a></span>; digital painting by <span class="ljuser i-ljuser"></span><a href="http://anncros.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://anncros.livejournal.com/"></a><b>anncros</b><br/><b>Characters</b> Mainly Dean/Castiel, Sam/Mira, and peripheral characters throughout<br/><b>Summary</b> Some demons are easy to get rid of, others are harder to define; and between it all, the difficulty and triumph of the human spirit in the earthly realm. And so it goes.<br/><b>Warnings</b> Language, violence, explicit sexuality, scenes that some may perceive as dubcon, references to non-con, references to torture and noncon used as a method of torture by Dean Winchester, references to past Dean/Alastair<br/><b>Rating</b> NC-17<br/><b>Wordcount</b> ~9,200 words<br/><b>Authors’ note</b> We’ve had tons of messages and Asks at our Tumblrs from people who preferred and would like a version of the original epilogue of Redemption Road to have along with the version at the LJ Comm. That version was reworked against our wishes by the co-mod of the project because she felt it did not adhere sufficiently to her "personal vision" of Dean. When we protested and pointed out that RR was not conceived and written in the service of her "personal vision" of Dean, we were told that if we did not meet her demands she would delete all of her episodes from RR. Since this would have left gaps in the story, and also would have meant deleting the hard work of several co-writers who had to pitch in to help complete her episodes without long delays occurring, we were forced to allow her to make the changes she required. Those changes interfered with certain elements of continuity from the preceding finale episodes, and also with a central theme of Dean's "redemption." So here is the original, and thank you for your interest.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Redemption Road: “Director’s Cut” Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> **Redemption Road – Original Epilogue**  
>  By [](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/profile)[**swordofmymouth**](http://swordofmymouth.livejournal.com/) and [](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/profile)[**zatnikatel**](http://zatnikatel.livejournal.com/) ; digital painting by [](http://anncros.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://anncros.livejournal.com/)**anncros**  
>  **Characters** Mainly Dean/Castiel, Sam/Mira, and peripheral characters throughout  
>  **Summary** Some demons are easy to get rid of, others are harder to define; and between it all, the difficulty and triumph of the human spirit in the earthly realm. And so it goes.  
>  **Warnings** Language, violence, explicit sexuality, scenes that some may perceive as dubcon, references to non-con, references to torture and noncon used as a method of torture by Dean Winchester, references to past Dean/Alastair  
>  **Rating** NC-17  
>  **Wordcount** ~9,200 words  
>  **Authors’ note** We’ve had tons of messages and Asks at our Tumblrs from people who preferred and would like a version of the original epilogue of Redemption Road to have along with the version at the LJ Comm. That version was reworked against our wishes by the co-mod of the project because she felt it did not adhere sufficiently to her "personal vision" of Dean. When we protested and pointed out that RR was not conceived and written in the service of her "personal vision" of Dean, we were told that if we did not meet her demands she would delete all of her episodes from RR. Since this would have left gaps in the story, and also would have meant deleting the hard work of several co-writers who had to pitch in to help complete her episodes without long delays occurring, we were forced to allow her to make the changes she required. Those changes interfered with certain elements of continuity from the preceding finale episodes, and also with a central theme of Dean's "redemption." So here is the original, and thank you for your interest.

The shattered word they find themselves driving through is no real surprise, because Dean has seen these derelict, burnt-out buildings, looted storefronts, abandoned cars and deserted streets before. The barbed-wire National Guard Checkpoint Charlies they encounter at regular intervals as they journey are no surprise either; nor are the armored personnel carriers patrolling the smaller towns along the route, where a scattering of real live people, who stare at them with crazy eyes, still eke out an existence in the new world alongside the funeral pyres where the bodies of their dead friends and relatives burn.

Outside of Rapid City they get pulled over by a platoon of trigger-happy airmen running guerrilla ops out of Ellsworth Air Force Base under a commander who's gone totally Kurtz, and they spend a tense half-day trying to convince him they're harmless civilians who just happen to be packing an armory with them as they travel. Dean lock-picks his way out of his cell at two in the morning and breaks the rest of them out within ten minutes, but Sam takes a slug in the right shoulder as they high-tail it out of there. Mira digs it out of him in Rufus Turner's cabin, while Dean holds his brother down on the same mattress where he first turned to Castiel and reached out in the darkness with love in his heart.

Over the border and into Wyoming, they meander through a landscape gone barren and lunar, where sudden downpours turn the road into glutinous tire-sucking mud that threatens to bog them down. One day a fog rolls in, so thick their vehicles labor to cut a path through it. It clears just as abruptly to reveal they are tracking along the lip of a sheer, giddying abyss that shouldn't be there; a jagged Rift Valley of a crack more than two-hundred feet wide and dropping into endless black, that winds on into the distance and belches steam and smoldering ash. After a couple of miles they get detoured all the way down to Cheyenne by wary marines who don't look old enough to shave, and who point at signs that read _quarantine_. When one of the kids throws a fifty-one-fifty and starts screaming about monsters and zombies crawling out of Hell, his own sergeant shoots him on the spot.

They press on westward, through a landscape changed into something off-world and marked by more nooks and crannies that split the earth's surface and vomit red-hot lava. The atmosphere is heavy with sulfur and a sense of dread that makes the dogs whine and huddle together in the truckbed.

They strike lucky on I-80 when they come across a deserted gas station with a Shell tanker parked on the forefront, its door swinging open and its driver's half-eaten body nearby, gun still gripped tight in his hand. They fill up, top up their supplies and veer north again, towards Kemmerer, and then northwest into Idaho. They keep to the back roads, where it's quieter and there are no troops at all, but the land still yawns wide open at them from time to time, and Dean shivers to think of what might have crawled out of the sinkholes.

Some of the small towns they drive through as they head north still have electricity for a couple of hours a day, even if there are hardly any people left. Roach motels that used to charge thirty bucks a night but now cost five hundred loudly advertise hot running water instead of free wi-fi, and they throw caution to the wind and check into a couple along the road. As soon as the door closes behind them and the wards are laid, Dean slams Castiel up against the wall, and they feverishly tear at clothes, purr their lust and their love into each other's mouths, wrestle each other into the bathroom and under the showerhead. There is no constraint, only want and need; soap-slippery bodies and straining cocks, fingers and tongues on each other and in each other, the air going steamy and muggy while they render each other shivering and useless, before Dean contritely helps Castiel hobble out to the bed.

It's just under four weeks before they grind up the track to the camp, at dead of night.

The moonlit sign over the gate chills Dean, but he sets it aside, mentally vows to climb up there first chance he gets and paint the letter S over the letter C. Catching a glimpse of Risa, her eyes narrowed and suspicious as they drive through the front checkpoint, is no real surprise; and neither is Chuck, clipboard in hand as he waves them along rutted mud-tracks to a group of three wooden cabins towards the back of the fenced compound.

"How's the toilet paper situation?" Dean asks him dryly as he debarks the truck, and Chuck blinks confusedly at him.

"Uh. Under control."

"You should start stockpiling that stuff. Just in case."

Chuck frowns. "Yeah," he mutters, and he jots it down on his list. "You never know."

"Nope, you never do," Dean says.

But even alongside the depressing deja vu familiarity of the place, it turns out there are some surprises. Jonas Harper is one of them, striding up to greet them, and the prospect doesn't bother Dean in the slightest, because he's never letting go of Castiel and Castiel is never letting go of him. He shakes the man's hand, pulls him into a businesslike embrace, and claps him on the back. "Good to see you here, my friend," he says, and he means it.

The high, thin cry he hears as Castiel gingerly eases himself out of the passenger seat of the truck is another thing Dean didn't expect, along with the slightly built figure who is racing up through the trees ahead of Jody Mills, and hurling herself at Castiel. Claire Novak, and Castiel enfolds her in his arms, kisses the top of her head. When he looks up at Dean, his cheeks are shining wet.

"Missouri told her we were coming," he whispers to Dean, after Mills guides Claire back through the camp. "Her mother is here too," he adds, and his eyes are astonished.

There is a second where Dean thinks of warm brown eyes instead of Pacific blue, of soft curves instead of angles and solid muscle, when he remembers baseball games, barbecues, and yardwork; and the memories tighten his chest. He tamps them down, focuses on the fact Amelia and Claire Novak are a difference and he still wants to think that maybe these differences mean something, even if Gabriel left him in the dark on that.

On the morning after they arrive, Dean wakes at six-fifteen. He's warm, comfortable, and the drape of Castiel's arm across his belly is heavy and reassuring. He feels safe for the first time in weeks, and he savors the knowledge that there is a camp full of hunters outside, that he can relax his guard and just _be_ , for a while at least.

It's dead quiet but for the steady breathing next to him, and after Dean's eyes adapt to the gloom he spends a few minutes gazing at the rough pine beams overhead before he twists his head to watch Castiel sleep, studying the thick black fringe of his lover's lashes, the line of his jaw, his loose-limbed unconsciousness. He slides stealthily out from under Castiel's arm, and then out of their bed after that brief benediction, pulls one of the blankets with him and pads into the bathroom to take a leak before sneaking outside, still bare-ass naked under the fabric.

The sun is just rising, but it's light enough for Dean to scope their surroundings as he stands on the porch. Spruce trees surround them, their dark green foliage a reminder of his own tree, back in Sioux Falls; and there is a cluster of smaller cherry trees to the right. Through their branches, in the distance, he can see the lead-gray lake, bordered by the Salish Mountains on the western horizon, and he admires them for a moment, muses that this place feels oddly peaceful, that he feels safe.

Smoke is rising up in plumes from the chimneys of some of the other lodges, and Dean makes a mental note to shove a couple of logs in their own stove before he crawls back into bed. Their own cabin is set back, surrounded by grass and shrubs that remind Dean of how he helped Castiel plant seedlings in Missouri's garden. She's here somewhere, he knows, and he grins at the thought that she's probably known they were on the road and headed this way for days.

His gaze tracks to the bones and moldering skin of his car then, where she languishes on the trailer Bobby and Sam helped him load her on to before they pulled out of Singer Salvage for the last time. It's _what_ she is that matters, and, "I will fix you," he pledges.

"We'll fix her together," Castiel says from behind him. He's yawning as he steps up behind Dean and leans in to nuzzle at the back of Dean's neck, but he's wide awake lower down, and Dean can feel the jab of his dick as it pokes inquisitively at his ass through the blanket, feel the vibration of Castiel's lips as the angel growls possessively into his nape.

Dean turns with a grin, opens his arms wide, and wraps Castiel in a blanket-warmed embrace. He feels his own semi hard-on throb as it collides with the hard bone of Castiel's hip, and there is something in Castiel's eyes right then, a softness that makes Dean feel suddenly shaky with want, makes his heart do a swooping barrel roll inside his ribs. "I feel like I'm exactly where I was meant to be," he says, impulsive. "With exactly the person I was meant to be with."

Castiel's eyes widen in response, his mouth curving into a smile that looks delighted. And they haven't, not since before the Beast; but now, here, with the future opening out ahead of them, Dean wants it, wants to be _past him_ , because that Castiel had liked _past him_. He leans in, snatches at Castiel's lower lip with his teeth. "I want you inside me," he murmurs. "I want you to—"

 _Shut the fuckin' door_ , comes bellowing in from outside, followed by raucous hooting and cheering.

Dean jumps a foot off the ground, whirls at the same time as his blanket falls away, to see Risa and a couple of burly, bearded guys spectating through the wide open door from ground level. Risa's eyes go round as her gaze drops down to Dean's crotch, and she nods in approval and gives him a thumbs-up sign.

Dean vaguely thinks she's never getting near his dick, _fuck, no_ , because his only connection is with the man behind him, and then Castiel is laughing, swinging him around and slamming the door on their audience.

Castiel clumsily bustles Dean back to tumble them onto the bed, where the early sunlight is playing weak gold rays across the quilts, and he starts to rain kisses down on Dean until Dean squirms, before he rolls them so Dean is above him. He clamps his hand to his mark on Dean's shoulder and stares up then, eyes brilliant, hair mussed chaotically, mouth wet and flushed, and the line of his cock like steel along Dean's belly. He blinks slow enough for it to be flirtatious, even if Dean isn't sure if it's consciously so, hooks one leg around the back of Dean's thighs and grinds up into Dean, humming a sweet note of obscene pleasure as he does. "You should lock the door," he suggests.

 _Hell yes_ , and Dean scrambles up and away, almost sprints back to the door to throw the bolts across, top and bottom. He swivels back around, and for a moment he's lost in appreciating his lover's body; his long, muscled form spread out diagonally across the bed, one leg bent and his good foot braced on the bed end, his dick bobbing lazily in Dean's direction as he waits. Dean doesn't suppress his low wolf-whistle, and Castiel pushes up onto his elbows, his expression quizzical.

"Are you coming?" he asks, and Dean smirks.

"I will be."

Castiel studies Dean, his gaze as calculated as if he's taking Dean's measure, and any remaining subtlety is gone as he reaches down to grasp himself and strip his cock once, twice, three times, slow and deliberate, while he licks his lips. It's debauched, and Dean corrupted this angel of the Lord himself, and _fuck_ , he feels a sharp throb in his own dick as his face splits in a smile he can't help. "Horny little bastard," he notes appreciatively. "You're damn lucky I love your cock."

He pads back to the bed, crawls up as far as he has to, leans down and seals his mouth around Castiel, smirking at the angel's whimper as he slaps the flat of his tongue under the ridge and suckles so hard he tastes salty droplets. He pulls off with a pop, presses a gentle kiss to the tip, looks up to where Castiel is blinking hazily at him, and grins. "I packed the tattoo gun," he says huskily. "I love this cock so much, I'm thinking to tattoo property of Dean Winchester along the side."

Castiel's eyes widen and Dean chuckles, swallows him down again. Teeth, a blunt scrape along the spine, thick satin-smooth hardness in between Dean's lips, and Dean will never get tired of this kind of worship. He exhales as he swallows Castiel as far as the root, the head butting up against his soft palate. Castiel's fingers card convulsively through his hair and he starts making shallow thrusts, uncoordinated and jerky. The taste, the smell, the heavy, full feel of Castiel on his tongue, and the steady, needy keening Dean can hear from the other end of the bed are intoxicating and so erotic Dean's own dick throbs painfully, but he holds off his lust. He slides his fingers back behind Castiel's balls and into the cut of his ass, back and forth, keeps mouthing and sucking at his friend's cock, relishes it until it swells succulent and surges up aggressively.

A garbled cry signals Castiel's release and warm, brackish fluid hits the back of Dean's throat. He drinks his fill for a moment, until he is hauled up and Castiel is licking into his mouth, a savage, forceful kiss that abruptly turns to a slow, reverent brush of lips and curving, twisting slow-dance of tongues that lights sparks in Dean, makes his chest tighten and his heart skip. He doesn't want to face the world, wants to hang onto this for as long as he can, so, "We should call in sick today," he murmurs. "Stay in bed. We have coffee, soup in those cans. We'll tell Sam and Bobby we're infectious. Quarantine ourselves for their own good."

Castiel hums, stretches like a lazy cat underneath him, and his fingers trace an idle, meandering path up the ridges of Dean's back. "I take it sex is the cure?"

Dean smirks. "Your dick is sick. It'll be needing the kiss of life. Frequently."

"But you're not really going to tattoo it are you?"

Partway through nipping at the hinge of Castiel's jaw, Dean snorts. "Trust me. I got a steady hand. You know that already."

Castiel's hand is spread on Dean's right ass cheek, his fingers massaging into its curve. "I do trust you," he says thoughtfully. "It's just that—"

"How much?" Dean asks him, pulling up to fix his friend with a stare.

Raising an eyebrow a little suspiciously, Castiel tells him, "Considerably. But…possibly not _that_ considerably."

But Dean has already moved on, and he curls his lips up into a sly smile. "I got a better idea anyway."

In Dean's back pocket he keeps a blue kerchief; it's the sort of thing that's just a staple of life, useful for wiping motor grease off his hands or lighting a Molotov cocktail in a pinch. He keeps them in the glove box and the trunk and in jacket pockets. The one poking out of the careless puddle of denim his jeans make on the floor next to the bed is clean, and he reaches down to hook the corner of fabric and whip it out. He stretches it between his hands before he looks to Castiel. "Do you still trust me?" he asks softly.

Castiel's features are absolutely still, impassive. "Of course."

Dean pushes up to stand, moves to the window, pulls the heavy curtains across to cut the beam of morning sunlight off. He pads back to the bed in the semi-darkness and knees his way up it so that he's back on all-fours and gazing down. He slips a hand under the back of his friend's neck, pulls Castiel up as he leans down for another long, slow slide and press of lips and tangle of tongues, warm and wet and gentle, before he nuzzles his way around to the shell of Castiel's ear. "Let me blindfold you."

Castiel tenses from instinct but Dean doesn't wait for protest, he pulls back, swoops the bandana deftly around the band of his friend's skull and ties the end into a neat, comfortable knot. There is a runnel of sweat now on Castiel's brow, and his throat flexes as he swallows.

"Dean?" he broaches uncertainly.

"I'm here," Dean soothes him, even as he shifts away, plants his feet back on the rag rug beside the bed, and takes a few steps backward. "Just a sec…" He knows Castiel is utterly familiar with his hungry, insatiable nature, knows too that the sudden distance must be confusing, but for Dean it's all going according to plan, and he shivers with a quiet excitement as he concentrates and closes his own eyes from the dark corner of the cabin. "I just—"

"Didn't you go when you woke up?" Castiel interrupts, with the irritable patience he has patented.

Dean snorts. "Not that. Idiot." He drags his voice down to a whisper he hopes is seductive. "Just put your hand over your chest."

Castiel tilts his head, hesitates, and then his hand trails slowly up across his belly and ribs to map his chest, where Dean's handprint marks his skin. His fingers fit into the shallow grooves and stay there.

Dean closes his eyes as he reaches up to settle his palm over his own mark, where Castiel once pulled him from Hell in another lifetime. When his fingers find the outline like a glove, there is a sensation of free fall, of continuous darkness that is meaningless, and for a moment Dean thinks it won't work, that Gabriel lied, that there is nothing left of Castiel's grace and that the thread that linked them frayed and disintegrated with it.

 _Damn you_ , he's thinking at the precise second his flesh tingles; a buzzing sensation in his fingers signaling that something is happening, not only deep in the nerve fibers of skin and muscle, but on another dimension of sensation. In the next second, the distance between where Dean stands and where Castiel reclines recedes as they connect through their scars, and Castiel hisses sharply.

"Damn me?" he asks balefully. "Really, Dean?"

Dean grins, his eyes still closed. "Not you. Never you."

"You should know better," Castiel reproves him. "This is my realm."

Dean's eyes are still closed, his hand still planted over his mark. "I thought it might be fun to experiment with, you know?" he defends. "But I didn't know how much mojo it would take to—"

"Do something like _this_?" Castiel offers, and suddenly Dean feels the hot press of lips against his mouth, splitting his open and seeking the warmth there.

The lips withdraw long enough for Dean to gasp out, and then the ghostly mouth is at his chin, flowing down the angle of his jaw, where the skin is tender and sensitive. Teeth track their way through nips and bites, until Dean is shuddering with it all, gulping in great swallows of air without meaning to. He knows that if he opens his eyes, there will be no mouth there at all, that Castiel will still be on the bed without ever having moved. They need only think of something and they can make it possible through their shared link.

"Yeah," he croaks. "Something like that. One of those weird _you_ things. But, you know, with your tank running on fumes…"

"Shhhhh, love," Castiel hushes him softly. "Picture this cabin. But don't open your eyes, or the link will break."

Dean nods, sets himself to imagining their new home in all of its defects: the knots in the woodwork, the draughty casement windows, the four-pack of toilet paper at the door, and the box of canned and dried foods and MREs beside that, the rat droppings he noticed under the bed from when one made a home there over the winter. Its comforts too – the kitchenette with the old wood stove where Castiel can cook up meaty stews and bake pies, the overstuffed couch in the corner, the thick piled quilts and blankets, and the warm body that will meet and match him there.

"Now, picture the cabin without the roof."

Dean takes the roof apart inside his head one shingle at a time, dropping them onto the ground in the surrounding area, followed by the joists that support the long slats of particle board. He casts each element one by one onto the grass as though a team of day laborers is doing it for a massive roofing job, until the sun pours in and drenches him, so real in his vision that he can feel its warmth and red-golden glow on his face.

He thinks of Castiel and his mind turns to his friend laid out on the bed, his hands behind his head, the kerchief still covering his eyes and his lips curved into a contented smile. Beneath Castiel is a dark-colored down comforter that Dean can't remember having seen before, because it's ripped open and bleeding sable-hued feathers. In the next instant he realizes it's not a comforter at all – it's Castiel's wings, folded behind him. They are faded and diminished compared to how they looked when Dean combed his fingers through them as Castiel rocked his hips and drove himself hard into Dean in the waterfall cave, but still there, despite everything. How much longer he will be able to unfurl them is a question for the future but for now, Dean puts it out of his mind for fear the entire world as they have constructed it together will fall apart.

"You're beautiful," Dean whispers.

Castiel reaches a hand to Dean, beckons. "Come here."

It has the note of order, and Dean grins. "You telling me what to do, now?" He can tell Castiel is rolling his eyes behind the bandana even though his own eyes stay scrunched tight-closed, but his tone is softer and indulgent when he speaks again.

"Do you remember how we joined back in the cave Dean?"

The memory of the pleasure that flashed through every cell as Castiel's light flooded into him makes Dean shiver, sends a delicious thrill of electricity zipping down to the tip of his cock and curling its way around his balls. "Fuck, yes," he replies faintly.

Castiel smiles. "There is so much more we can do. But you have to keep your eyes closed."

There are several seconds of time when Dean is suddenly so sexually excited that his dick throbs almost painfully and all rational thought empties out of his head, but he has the presence of mind to hold his ground in this daydream land supported by their shared link, his mind's eye staring agog as Castiel's grin widens. "More?" he replies, and if it comes out as a raw gasp, he doesn't even really care.

"Human lovemaking is enjoyable because it's physical, Dean," Castiel murmurs. "But that physicality can be limiting simply because it's physical. With this link, we just eliminated all the constrictions of matter, and molecules, and elements. So…do you want to know what it's like to make love without limits?"

Dean feels the breath punch out of him and a scorching flood of heat travels from his chest to his groin, like someone just laid a hot muffler on his belly. He has never thought of the metaphysics of sex and this began as a fun experiment, but it hasn't ever occurred to him that maybe this is the sort of thing Castiel might have fantasized about, that there were other ways to make love, and _holy shit_ he's thinking, _like, more than human?_

"What does that even mean?" he marvels, his eyes still glued shut. "Is this how the angels cloud seed? And won't it wear you out?"

The angel pushes up to sit on the bed, flexes and stretches his bad foot luxuriously before setting it on the floor without a wince, gently tugs the kerchief down and away from his eyes, and leaves it in a loose ring around his neck. "We have time," he tells Dean, his tone amused. "We can _quarantine_ ourselves afterwards. Until we recover."

His wings are still raised up behind him, flaring soft and rippling brown, gray and teal, like a giant hawk's, and Dean can remember how gossamer soft they felt as he carded his fingertips through them, the way Castiel shuddered and moaned as he groomed them, the way they cocooned him and he felt warm, protected. _Safe_.

And that's it. He is _safe_ , and, "show me," he croaks.

Castiel is still there on the bed one second, and then in front of Dean the next and Dean hears the faint echo of his wings beating the air before silence falls. Castiel's eyes make blue circles inside rings of smoky gray, his lashes like charcoal marks on an art drawing.

"Are you afraid?" he whispers.

"A little," Dean concedes.

"There's a part of you that likes that."

"I didn't always," Dean mutters, even if he's aware that Castiel knows. "I didn't _before_."

Castiel tilts his head and Dean experiences a dizzy sensation, a whiffle of air in the still room. He feels as though a hand is caressing the back of his head even though Castiel is in front of him and not even touching him yet; it's like his brain is a file cabinet and Castiel is flipping through inventory cards.

"Find anything?" Dean manages.

"Memories you've forgotten," Castiel confirms, before adding more darkly, "Things you don't want to know."

And with that, Dean senses the mental filing cabinet slamming shut, the clink of steel as the padlock closes, and he lifts his chin, crosses his arms over his chest, defiant. "What is it? I want to know."

Castiel's features soften. "Oh, Dean. You don't want to know."

Dean provokes him, because _fuck that noise_ after what they've been through this past year. "Are we going to argue about this? Are you keeping stuff from me again? Like that worked for you the last time?"

Castiel crosses his arms in a mirror of Dean's own stance, and his wings bristle and flare in what Dean thinks might be annoyance. For a long moment, he fixes Dean with a hard stare that makes his caving in all the more unexpected. "Fine. But I said you don't want to know."

Just like a lifetime ago, Castiel raises his hand and pushes two fingers into Dean's forehead. The second they touch home it feels like a starburst, an engine revving and combusting behind Dean's eyes. Every unwanted memory from infancy to adulthood has been buried there in hidden spaces, in bricked-up nooks and crannies; but they explode out now, and in a fraction of a second Dean discovers the forgotten fragments of himself, for he is a creature of many parts, like his beloved car, restored twenty times over now.

He peers back through the territory of years, through a childhood spent barricaded in sleazy motel rooms caring for his brother while John Winchester was out chasing shadows in the night. He sees himself rocking a fretful infant in his arms, helping a toddler take his first steps, teaching a preschooler his letters using the funny pages, poring over homework with a shaggy-haired tween who doesn't want the life they lead. He sees himself in a field in the middle of nowhere on the Fourth of July, showing Sammy how to light the fuse on a firecracker and run like hell, watching his brother leap and dance under cascading sparks, while Bob Dylan rings out through the night from the cassette player.

He sees himself sitting and watching the door, waiting for the fumbling of the key on the other side, because _goddammit_ , he had wanted a father as much as he wanted his mother, and instead he got a broken shell of man eaten through by revenge, like wood decimated rotten by termites.

 _His real father found him in Hell_.

A new father, a father who knew what Dean needed and knew what he was; knew he was a worthless shit of a man, not a man at all, _less than a man_ even, who couldn't save his brother without fucking that up and selling his soul in the process. This father knew Dean didn't deserve love, gave Dean what he did deserve, and when he was done giving Dean his discipline and his due diligence, he started to take things _away_ from Dean; flesh and bone, dignity, self-respect, sanity, all pared away, in perpetuity.

When his new father had given him every hurt, and stain, and scar he deserved, Dean was ready.

Dean was prime.

Dean was a new animal.

He sees his true self now; a demon crawling from the broken, discarded human chrysalis where he pupated, ready to give back in return, to share what he has learned and hone his skills. His eyes are black pools he sees reflected in his father's eyes each time Alastair leans in for a kiss, and his mouth cracks and splits at the corners with its grin as he circles his rack. The soul he has nailed there is screaming so loud and hard he can't tell if was man, woman or child, but no matter. They all sound exactly the same whatever they were up in the World, and their sweet song has him hard and aching as he unzips his pants, slow and easy, and—

His cry rips out of him, louder even than the soundtrack of Hell.

"What did I do? Christ, what did I do?"

Castiel slaps Dean across the face.

It's all he can think to do to bring his friend back from the shock and horror of realization, as he stands there with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare. With the sharp snap of the impact, their imaginary world shatters and they are their human and vulnerable selves again, back in the rough wooden cabin, with Dean's hand streaking up to press to the scarlet patch burning his cheek.

"What'd you do that for?" he gasps.

Castiel feels a sudden fury, at Dean, at himself for giving in, because some things are better off kept secret. "You were supposed to remember, not lose yourself in it. There's a difference."

Dean's face goes stricken at his words, and his reply is paper-thin. "You know what I did…you know."

And Castiel always has, can remember his reconnaissance; endless, lonely, furious and grief-stricken waiting through Alastair's pleasure and Dean's torture, poised for that moment when the demon's attention wandered and he could steal in and offer salvation, if the thing that was the Righteous Man even wanted to be saved. "What do you want, Dean?" he says quietly. "You want me to tell you how many times Alistair used you until you were nothing more than slop? That you did the same to others?"

Dean is desperate and wide-eyed. "Go ahead. Say it. Say the fuckin' word."

His friend's pain is almost too much, but Castiel keeps his voice steady. "Dean, I don't want to—"

"Rape, Cas," Dean almost-shrieks. "It was fuckin' _rape_. Did you think you were going to spare me, do me a favor by dancing around it, leaving it buried? I raped souls, Cas."

"And so did I," Castiel snaps back. "And I chose it. But you had no choice."

Dean reels and stumbles away, hands clamped to his head, words choking out of him harshly. "How am I supposed to…what am I supposed to do. With this. What? What do I do now?"

Castiel ramps down his anger, reaches out his hands. "Now we get to do something about it, we get to try to make it right. I was God, Dean, and I fucked up. But I'm here, and I'm trying to make it right. I'm doing my best, even if it goes wrong sometimes." He stops, takes a breath. "You taught me that," he goes on, gentle now. "Or else I would have ended it a long time ago. Because in case you forgot, my tab outweighs yours by thousands of souls."

Dean has turned back as Castiel speaks, but he's quiet. One hand scratches at his neck while he stares at the floor and chews on his bottom lip. "They'll be looking for us now," he says finally, haltingly. "All of everything that ever walked the Pit, everything we ever put there…all the souls I tortured down there, crawling back up to the World to end it and end us. Alastair too, maybe." His shoulders slump, and he sighs. "The tab is too big, Cas. Fuck, this is my fault. If I had just held on back then, if I had been stronger, if—"

"No. No you don't."

Castiel is done with Dean's guilt, surges forward almost reflexively. He swallows Dean's words down into himself, a feverish clash of lips and teeth, hands pulling Dean in against him; and Dean is already meeting him, driven by pure instinct, grinding against him, panting hot breath into his mouth as he paints fingerprints down Castiel's spine.

"Never say that, ever," Castiel growls into Dean's open mouth, as he separates them for long enough to suck in a breath and say what he wants to. "You held on. You were strong. It wasn't your fault, any of it. And this is not the end Dean, it's the beginning. We start over. There is no past in the future…there is no guilt, no pain, no destiny, no God. There's just us, you and I."

Dean groans into Castiel's mouth and his hands are swift and skillful as they find Castiel, hard and hot at his center, eager and wet at his tip. The sensation Dean's touch arouses is all-human, complete with the many autonomous intricacies that Castiel still cannot recover from and struggles to keep up with and comprehend; how his skin flexes and molds and tingles, how it perspires and shivers as Dean strokes and squeezes, how the blood races in his veins and his heartbeat pulses and pounds out of control in his ears, how he craves Dean with a passion that is carnal. This humanity is base and filthy, and all the more glorious for that, and Castiel's need is raw and dark, and when he presses his hand to his mark on Dean's shoulder and leans in to suck at the tender skin under Dean's ear, Dean makes a sound in response deep in his throat.

"I want you inside me, Dean," Castiel breathes into the skin under his lips, and Dean locks tight under his hand, before there is a wild, horrifying flood of more recent memories cascading through their link; of the boat, of frenzied, painfully dry thrusting and Dean's teeth breaking the skin of Castiel's neck as he clung on. It makes Dean flinch, but Castiel's palm is pressed to his cheek then, his head dipping forward until their brows meet.

"It doesn't make you him," Castiel whispers, and his mouth is gentle then as it plays across Dean's. "Make love to me. Make love to me, Dean…I need to feel you inside me, like I did then."

It must wake something inside Dean, because he gives a low, rasping cry and spins Castiel around so he faces the cabin wall, his hands spread over the old pine. Dean's fingers are like iron vises gripping the slide of skin over bone at Castiel's hips, and his lips seem to dance everywhere at once across Castiel's skin and down his spine as he sinks to his knees, teeth grazing Castiel's vertebrae as though he could locate a seam he might tear into, one that would open him up to the angel buried inside. His thumbs are sliding across Castiel's ass then, pulling the globes apart, and his tongue is blistering hot as it licks intimately up and down, across and in-in-in, its sharp point slick and torrid. And Castiel _wants_ , as much as he ever has, and he gives himself up to the heat that is searing through his groin, leans back into Dean. But Dean is pulling away suddenly, his fingers falling loose and trembling at Castiel's hips, and from behind him Castiel hears the sound of a choked sob, as though his friend can't bring himself to continue.

"It doesn't make you him, Dean," Castiel reiterates firmly. "And you aren't his. Remember what I said. Be your own man."

Dean sighs as though Castiel's rumbling command has snapped something in him with sound alone, severing the bonds of hurtful memory and breaking their hold over Dean the loyal son, the hammer, the obedient student, the demon he became. Just like he did in Hell, as the Beast loomed up to swallow Dean whole, Castiel gives Dean something he has never known – permission to be himself.

Dean moves behind him and there is a moment of reaching and rummaging, the click of a plastic cap echoing loud in the silence, before a hand snakes around and up Castiel's abdomen to fit itself to the brand on his chest while cool, slick fingertips track their way into the crease at the base of his spine, to the rim of him, his small, tight core. Dean paints a trail there with his touch, spreading the muscle like butter, easing Castiel open carefully with one finger, two, three, crooning and nuzzling at the nape of Castiel's neck as Castiel grits out a needful, "Yes… _yes_."

It goes on for long moments, Dean's fingers insistent, the sting of them subsiding to a dull ache of want, until they slide out and Dean presses himself the length of Castiel, so that he can feel the smooth dome of Dean's cock press at him before Dean hesitates.

"This is who I am," he whispers.

And then the arrow of Dean is there; solid, iron-hard length pressing up through the flesh, too much, too thick, too full. The heavy drag of it electrifies Castiel in the ecstatic borderline between pain and discomfort that serves as the prelude to pleasure; and still it isn't enough and he hears himself moan wantonly as he pushes back onto Dean, needs to feel every inch of Dean split him apart and plug the wound.

Dean drives in to meet him with a hoarse grunt, and slaps a hand into Castiel's hair, tangling his fingers in it so he can pull Castiel's head back to suckle at his neck while Castiel shudders and adjusts around him. Castiel opens his mouth, and when he does Dean covers it, smothers his cry, and Castiel bites into the webbing of Dean's thumb, licks his way to the delicate skin of Dean's wrist. Dean's other hand makes a path from his chest to his hip, and from there to the patch of dark hair that rings Castiel's straining cock, and he grips the shaft, strips it in a loose fist. The motion tears gasps out of Castiel, as he gazes down at the pad of Dean's thumb rolling languidly up and over the cap, gliding slick through the dew drop at its seam and spreading the liquid across the glossy purple skin there.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" Dean whispers, his breath skittering giddy across Castiel's skin.

Castiel smiles against Dean's palm. "I want it all," he breathes. "All of you. Always."

Dean husks out a possessive sounding snarl that might be Castiel's name, pulls away and thrusts forward, and Castiel feels the golden tap against the inner spot as Dean claims him, thrums with the sensation as it bursts and spasms inside him, and then again, as Dean finds it with purpose and rams into it over and over. The ache of it is blissful, and already the edges of Castiel's vision are blurring, the world gone white-hot as his orgasm swells up and explodes, seismic waves rippling out. He comes with a stuttering cry, his forehead pressed against the wall and his legs shaking, blinks down at the milky liquid that spurts, and coils, and trickles lazily over Dean's fingers. He doesn't have to ask to know that Dean is doing the same, his rhythm faltering and a breathless whine ripping out of him as he pushes forward and expends himself in a last slam-thrust of energy, followed by a flood of liquid heat Castiel can feel pulsing inside him.

Dean slumps against Castiel's back for a moment, breath heaving in and out, mouth damp and slack on Castiel's skin, his arms dangling loose, and aftershocks sending tremors through him, before he presses a row of kisses to the line of Castiel's shoulder and pulls out with a soft hiss. He takes the few steps to the bed in a weary shuffle and flops backwards onto the mattress.

It's Castiel's turn to drink in the sight now, as he knows Dean did when he himself lay there. Dean looks worn out, eyes half lidded as his chest rises and falls rapidly, one arm thrown out across the bed and the other curled loosely across his groin where his cock lies, well-used and utterly spent. "I'm keeping you," he manages, his voice faint with effort. "All of you. Always."

Castiel flicks his gaze down to his own cock, still hard and not at all ready to sink back into oblivion as it bobs enthusiastically, seeking something like the raw, wet warmth it enjoyed earlier. He clears his throat as he moves towards the bed. "I hope you don't think we're done."

"Wha?" Dean groans. "Can't a guy take a breather—"

"Touch the mark again," Castiel says.

Wryly, Dean reminds him, "We went bad places when we did that just now, Cas."

Castiel smiles. "Not this time. I promise."

"Whatever." Dean gives up, too tired to fight it, and the drowsy flop of his fingers on the reddened skin is half-hearted at best.

"Close your eyes," Castiel whispers. "Picture everything as it is now. And—"

_—can you hear me now?_

_Loud and clear. I could fall asleep like this, on the bed._

_Not yet, Dean. Not yet_.

The link between them sizzles with energy Castiel can feel on his fingers as he slides them up over the mark on his chest and settles his weight on the bed beside Dean. His lover moves grudgingly, allowing him room without opening his eyes. Dean's face is tilted up to the ceiling and the light that streams in above the curtains now that the sun is riding higher in the sky burnishes him in tones of pale winter gold. "You are beautiful, my love," Castiel breathes out, and he leans down and kisses Dean as though he were a hummingbird dipping in to drink from a flower. He imagines that the tongue he winnows into Dean's mouth is golden with honey, and Dean rumbles out a weary laugh as he tastes it.

_You like that…_

_Oh yeah. Think you can bring us cheeseburgers like that too?_

_Don't be so limited. We can do more than that, for the time we have._

_Like what?_

Castiel smothers Dean with another honeyed kiss, and this time he does not relent and give Dean time to breathe. He makes sweeping passes around Dean's palate, sucks at Dean's lips until they swell, nips red marks into Dean's jaw, licks a line down the ligament of Dean's neck. He wraps himself around Dean, closer, _closer_ , until they are inseparable and he is lifting Dean's leg so he can glide purposeful fingers along skin still slippery with semen that turns Castiel's fingers fluid-slick, and all the while Dean clutches at the scar on his shoulder, breath coming fast and heavy.

Castiel circles the puckered indent and nudges in, slowly, carefully, diligently, twisting and circling his finger, bending to swallow Dean's moans. He imagines the crackle of pleasure he can sense inside Dean firing into bursts of electricity that spark through every synapse at once, and Dean responds, thrashing and incoherent, overcome with the tidal wave of ecstasy that threatens to drown him, eyes moving frantically behind his closed lids. Still Castiel gives him no quarter and no relief, only a second finger and a third, as Dean did for him, curling and stroking deep inside until Dean is ready, his cock rigid again and blood-red at the tip, and he's straining up out of the sheets.

Castiel rises to kneel, reaches for the tube of oil Dean had used, and squeezes a pool of it onto his hand. He strips himself, slots in between Dean's legs, and for a moment he holds himself there, watching in fascination as the circle of muscle stretches around the head of his cock to let him in, lipping at him and clinging greedily as he teases it. He rocks back, pushes in again, again, again, seating himself further inside with each gentle nudge.

There is the tight vise of velvet heat Castiel remembers from before, and Dean moans, Dean whimpers, Dean is unfettered in their bed, where nothing has a claim on him but Castiel alone as he coaxes out one golden cry after another. There is the clench and tug of flesh around Castiel, there is friction, chafing, pleasure that strobes through him and makes him growl and unfurl his wings as he did the first time he claimed this right, and he can feel the pulse of Dean's heart through it. Dean flexes up to meet him, fingernails raking furrows across Castiel's backside, furrows Castiel imagines are the bars of the cage Dean locked his heart in, to keep for himself.

"God, Cas," Dean gasps. "Let me open my eyes."

"As you wish," Castiel whispers, and Dean opens his eyes and cries out.

"It's safe," Castiel murmurs. "I have you. I won't let us fall."

While Castiel has been making a ferocious kind of love to Dean, he has been insensate to everything but his euphoria, until the moment he opens his eyes and realizes that they are floating on air, the mattress and its twisted sheets trailing below them into empty space as Castiel's wings beat gently.

"We can make love with the stars, Dean," Castiel whispers, and scrapes a bite into Dean's collarbone as he thrusts in. "You just have to want to go there. Remember how you pictured this cabin without its roof?"

Dean closes his eyes again and gives himself. He shatters, and breaks, and reforms, and Castiel senses the moment Dean realizes gravity is an illusion, that he can break it with a thought in this private world; and in that second, he feels the heat of the sun that drenches them as they rise up, up, into the blue.

"It's not real," Dean whispers.

"No," Castiel murmurs. "It's within our… _innerspace_."

"No one else can see us?"

"Not unless you want them to."

Dean says nothing else, but Castiel covers him with kisses and presses him close so there is no space between their bodies as he finds his rhythm and takes Dean, over and over again, until Dean's body and soul are singing with pleasure, with the golden sun, with the clouds and mist above it, with hidden rainbows in the refracting light of every raindrop, with the moon and the stars. This is the divine geometry interwoven in the world, and when they come, the synergy of the moment threatens the bounds of limitless space.

In the darkness, Gabriel comes awake, and Kali shifts beside him the dark.

"Mmmm, what is it?"

Gabriel smirks. He plants a kiss in her hair and breathes in cardamom, tastes garam masala there.

"Nothing, babe. Some people just don't know how to keep it down, is all."

They come down from the stars in their own time, but Castiel can already feel the stinging pain of his broken foot taking on a fresh resonance with his remaining grace too exhausted to mitigate it. He knows this must be his last indiscretion, this trivial use of whatever latent angelic power he has left, power he should save for an emergency. But maybe that's what love is – a dire emergency, occurring around them all the time, without end.

Dean is draped on top of Castiel, face down and lax, and he clears his throat from deep in the juncture between Castiel's neck and shoulder. "Do you think I can change the future?"

The question is unexpected. It's also resigned; weighted heavy with responsibility, regret, and the residue of old guilt that Castiel knows will never truly recede. "That burden isn't yours alone, Dean," he says quietly. "I won't let it be. It's up to all of us to make sure that future never happens." He waits a moment before he asks his own question. "I can take it away. That memory. If you want me to."

Dean tenses in his arms, and there is the flex of his throat as he swallows, and then a brief silence before he answers. "No. I need to know." His voice is strained as he goes on. "That future me was torturing. And maybe he didn't know what I know…maybe this is a difference, maybe it'll stop me. Knowing what I'm capable of. Know thyself, right?"

"What you became," Castiel whispers, "is what you became, Dean. It wasn't _you_. It was never you."

After sighing into Castiel's skin, Dean sidetracks, "This place…someone must be running it all, making the decisions. So maybe I don't have to lead these people. Maybe we can just _be_ here. Without…any of that other stuff."

Castiel traces his fingertip along Dean's spine, etches circles around the notches of his vertebrae. "Maybe," he agrees diplomatically. "But we can't hide in here forever."

"I love you, Castiel," Dean whispers after a brief silence. "So damn much. You make me happy, even if the world is in the shitter. Never change. And never leave me, _never_."

Castiel startles, but he thinks he shouldn't be surprised. He knows this is Dean trying to make sure that future never happens; but it's academic, because he also knows Dean loves him. Dean need never say it, not really, and that faith seems far more important than the spoken words. He doesn't respond in kind, but something comes to him, something he read in a dog-eared paperback he found on Bobby's bookshelves. "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed," he murmurs into Dean's hair. "I read this in one of Bobby's books. The—"

"Little Prince." Dean kisses the pulse point in Castiel's throat, and Castiel can feel the way his friend's heartbeat speeds up, fluttering against the scar on his own chest as Dean continues. "That's my book." He rolls away onto his side then, tugging Castiel into the concave of his chest, curling his leg across Castiel's bad one in a moment of ill-considered comfort.

Castiel hisses, a flame of agony shooting up his calf. "Careful!"

Dean's eyes go round. "Shit. Sorry, man. But I'm still not letting you get away."

He pulls Castiel close, and Castiel frowns, notes, "It must be very convenient for you."

"That you can't run?" Dean huffs. "You bet I'll take full advantage of that. Too bad Bobby's wheelchair is all messed up, we could have used it."

"I don't think Bobby's wheelchair is the best venue for sex, Dean."

"You're such a pain in the ass, you know that?" Dean chides. "Oh sure, fucking in the stratosphere is perfectly acceptable even if it drains you dry, but you draw the line at a wheelchair?"

Castiel wants to say something clever and effortless, but he discovers that even with a millennia of logic and rational thought at his disposal, Dean trumped his argument in a fraction of a second. Instead, he settles into their tired, sweaty, come-sticky tangle of limbs, gazes into green for a long while, and then he does voice what is in his heart.

"You are the last perfect thing, Dean," he says, tender as a kiss. "And I love you. With all of my heart, with all of my body, with all of my grace. With every part of me, always."

Dean puts his hand on Castiel's face, strokes his thumb along Castiel's cheekbone, his expression gone soft and fond. "Yeah," he says hoarsely. "Yeah. Okay, Cas. That." He swallows. "Maybe I'm not worth it."

"You don't think you deserve to be saved," Castiel whispers in return, and he sees how his friend's eyes widen at the words he spoke so long ago. "But you do. Maybe we both do. Maybe we can save each other."

Dean's lips curve into a smile. "Maybe we can," he murmurs. He's brushing Castiel's hair away from his forehead as he speaks, and his eyes narrow into curiosity, and a crease forms between his brows.

Castiel knows this look. "What?" he prompts dubiously.

Dean reaches up and pokes at Castiel's temple for a second or two, before Castiel feels a sharp snag of discomfort. He has to pull back, away from Dean's thumb and forefinger as it looms up between them.

There is a white hair caught there, and Dean is entranced by it, turns it this way and that as he studies it, his bottom lip pulled in under his teeth.

"When my grace fades completely, I will grow old," Castiel acknowledges quietly. "It's already starting." He thinks about it for a moment; how he will slow down and become stooped, how his vision will blur and his hearing will muffle, how his joints will stiffen and his bones will creak, how his muscles will soften and waste away, how his skin will grow crepey and fragile.

And his hair will turn gray.

"I had this – I don't know. Call it a dream." Dean's voice is halting as he continues. "That we'd have a home, and that when your mojo was all used up we'd sit on the porch swing and drink beer, and be grumpy old-timers together."

Dean grins a lopsided grin then, and his eyes suddenly shine so bright that Castiel wonders if it might be his last glimpse of Dean's soul before that second-sight is lost to him, along with perpetual youth.

"You'll grow old," Dean echoes him softly. "You'll grow old with _me_."

  



End file.
